Magazines on the Move: North American Periodicals and Travel
Friday 22nd September 2017, Nottingham Trent University, Clifton Campus

Seminar website

A one-day seminar hosted by the Centre for Travel Writing Studies, Nottingham Trent University, in collaboration with the Network for American Periodical Studies (rescheduled from June 2017).

Keynote speaker: Professor Andrew Thacker (Nottingham Trent University)
Organisers: Dr Victoria Bazin (Northumbria University); Dr Rebecca Butler (Nottingham Trent University); Dr Sue Currell (Sussex University); Prof Tim Youngs (Nottingham Trent University)
Confirmed speakers include Dr Claire Lindsay (UCL) and Dr Rachel Farebrother (Swansea University)

This day-seminar will focus on the relationship between North American travel writing and the periodical format. Its primary purpose is to facilitate historical and critical discussion of narratives of travel in North American periodicals.

We invite proposals for twenty-minute papers that examine accounts of travel to, within, or from North America, published in North American periodicals. We also welcome papers on periodicals and travel of Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.

Topics to be examined in considering the interplay between the travel experience, the written and/or visual record of travel, and the periodical publication of the travel record, may include, but are not limited to:

• Commercial considerations
• Editorial policy and interventions
• Gender and sexuality
• Periodical context and design
• Purpose of travel
• ‘Race’
• Readership
• Solo or group travel
• Technologies of transport/mode of travel
• Tourism
• Visual representations

The seminar is a collaboration between Nottingham Trent’s Centre for Travel Writing Studies (CTWS) and the Network of American Periodical Studies (NAPS). It draws on the expertise of both research centres, as well as that of our keynote speaker, Professor Andrew Thacker (NTU), a specialist in modernist magazines and spatial geographies of modernism.

The Centre for Travel Writing Studies (CTWS) was established by Prof Tim Youngs (Nottingham Trent University) in 2002 to produce, facilitate, and promote scholarly research on travel writing and its contexts, without restriction of period, locus, or type of travel writing.

The Network of American Periodical Studies (NAPS) is a research initiative set up by Dr Sue Currell (Sussex University) and Dr Victoria Bazin (Northumbria University). It aims to bring together scholars working on American periodicals (magazines, newspapers and other periodical publications) from a range of historical periods and disciplines.

We welcome papers from scholars at any career stage and strongly encourage postgraduates to submit a proposal for consideration. Paper proposals of c200 words should be sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by 28th July 2017. Early submission is advised.

With grateful thanks to the British Association for American Studies (BAAS) for financial support, we are now able to offer a limited number of travel bursaries and fee waivers for postgraduate students to attend. Priority will be given to those offering papers. Please state at the end of your proposal if you are a postgraduate wishing to apply for help towards costs.